new to gst coming from VAST

Hi all!

I receive the posts of this list since months and I tried to experiment
with it.

*** My questions are in the middle of this e-mail.
All the others are just the story...

I'm a VisualAge Smalltalk programmer since 1997 - or actually I was.
However, we have some applications developed in smalltalk, and version
5.5 was the last we licensed from IBM. The main question is that some of
these application software are still in use at our customers and they're
just happy with that. And they are even asking for changes and additions.

We are in a dilemma of these:
- port our applications to other ST system.
- port to other language/framework (some already done and moved to Python)

I tried gst and the BLOX browsers which are nice and easy, and really
enough for start.

*** My questions:
- is there a HOWTO or a QUICK GUIDE about GST for Stupid VASTers?  :)
(main differences in the use of the system, etc)
- 90% of our customers use Win32. Any plan for a native release?
- One of our key application running at 6 customers is a CMS system,
heavily depending on the WebConnection feature of VAST. Is there any web
server component for GST? Pure CGI is more than enough, as it is only a
CMS system, not the runtime. I'm also afraid of moving the database layer...

We would like to preserve the application logic existing in smalltalk
and we would like  to move to open source as VAST is still painfully
expensive and its long term (long term!!!) existence is not guaranteed
(if IBM drops something....)

I personally DO LOVE smalltalk as the most productive language
environment I ever used.

Thanks for any help, recommendations.

best regards!

Robert

GNU Smalltalk version 2.3.3
Linux tpgentoo 2.6.22-gentoo-r9




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On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 19:04 +0100, RK wrote:
> We are in a dilemma of these:
> - port our applications to other ST system.
> - port to other language/framework (some already done and moved to Python)

Hopefully you can swing the former. :)

> *** My questions:
> - is there a HOWTO or a QUICK GUIDE about GST for Stupid VASTers?  :)
> (main differences in the use of the system, etc)

Not really; you may want to run through the tutorial in the official
manual.  GST is very similar to ST-80.  I believe some methods are
present to enable filein of VAST fileouts.

> - 90% of our customers use Win32. Any plan for a native release?

The project doesn't have the resources for that at this time.
Volunteers welcome.

Remember, as a GNU project, the priority is to work well on GNU systems.
As Paolo, the maintainer, also runs OS X, it tends to work well there as
well.  Of course an OS X port is not nearly as involved as Windows.

> - One of our key application running at 6 customers is a CMS system,
> heavily depending on the WebConnection feature of VAST. Is there any web
> server component for GST? Pure CGI is more than enough, as it is only a
> CMS system, not the runtime. I'm also afraid of moving the database layer...

A DB abstraction with a few drivers is included, as well as GLORP.
There is also a web server.  Please look in the packages/ directory of
the source tree.  The manual has a section on how to use and make
packages.

> GNU Smalltalk version 2.3.3

You should *definitely* upgrade to the latest alpha release.  Some of
what I said above isn't available in 2.3.x.

--
Our last-ditch plan is to change the forums into a podcast, then send
RSS feeds into the blogosphere so our users can further debate the
legality of mashups amongst this month's 20 'sexiest' gadgets.
        --Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka

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        Hi, Robert!

I'm quite new to Smalltalk/Gst too. Still, I spent some time to dig  
into it and I can share my own opinion. Please consider following as my  
IMHO!

Paolo and others, please please forgive me as the opinion may be too  
straight and not 100% true.

On 04.12.2007 00:04:33, RK wrote:
> We are in a dilemma of these:
> - port our applications to other ST system.

This is definitely preferable.

> - port to other language/framework (some already done and moved to  
> Python)
>
> I tried gst and the BLOX browsers which are nice and easy, and really  
> enough for start.

BLOX is very basic. Experienced smalltalkers most probably would  
dislike it. The main problem of Blox/Browser is that it's not in  
extensive use by anyone (this is just my assumption). It lacks some  
very basic things such as Keyboard Shortcuts. Still debugging exists  
and works. But with 2.95с I couldn't effectively use the technique  
"Send message-Trace in debugger-Change method-Try again cycle" because  
of stability problems.

> *** My questions:
> - is there a HOWTO or a QUICK GUIDE about GST for Stupid VASTers?  :)  
> (main differences in the use of the system, etc)

There's a tutorial which explains CLI. Nothing about GUI/Blox/Browser.

> - 90% of our customers use Win32. Any plan for a native release?
> - One of our key application running at 6 customers is a CMS system,  
> heavily depending on the WebConnection feature of VAST. Is there any  
> web server component for GST? Pure CGI is more than enough, as it is  
> only a CMS system, not the runtime.

This part is developing. Too early for production.

> I'm also afraid of moving the database layer...

Anyone tested DBI? Stress tests, unit tests?

> We would like to preserve the application logic existing in smalltalk  
> and we would like  to move to open source as VAST is still painfully  
> expensive and its long term (long term!!!) existence is not  
> guaranteed (if IBM drops something....)

While you have the sources of the whole class library, lack of support  
may be not as big problem as it seems. But if you want to extend and  
develop your system... yes, it's a pain in neck.

> I personally DO LOVE smalltalk as the most productive language  
> environment I ever used.
>
> Thanks for any help, recommendations.

My whole opinion about Gst is not optimistic: While having very sweet  
features (some I cannot find in other breeds), _I'm_ _pretty_ _much_  
_unsure_ _about_ _Gst_ _is_ _ready_ _for_ _production_ _use_.

I tried to understand it deeply (see my post about wiki/status page),  
but received no response. I decided to dig things myself, but I cannot  
afford spending much time into it.

Thank you for your attention.
Best regards, Ildar.
--
Ildar  Mulyukov,  free SW designer/programmer
================================================
email: [hidden email]
home: http://tuganger.narod.ru/
ALT Linux Sisyphus
================================================


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> Paolo and others, please please forgive me as the opinion may be too
> straight and not 100% true.

No problem.  Sincerity is never a problem.

> BLOX is very basic. Experienced smalltalkers most probably would dislike
> it. The main problem of Blox/Browser is that it's not in extensive use
> by anyone (this is just my assumption).

BLOX/Browser is a good system to *browse* things, but it is very
immature to *write* things.

>> - One of our key application running at 6 customers is a CMS system,
>> heavily depending on the WebConnection feature of VAST. Is there any
>> web server component for GST? Pure CGI is more than enough, as it is
>> only a CMS system, not the runtime.
>
> This part is developing. Too early for production.

Actually, that part is not too early for production.  At least it might
have bitrotten a bit, but the code has the functionality and was
relatively well tested.

>> I'm also afraid of moving the database layer...
>
> Anyone tested DBI? Stress tests, unit tests?

The MySQL and SQLite bindings are tested.  They don't have (yet) stored
procedures, which means you have to be extra careful about SQL injection
attacks.

> My whole opinion about Gst is not optimistic: While having very sweet
> features (some I cannot find in other breeds), _I'm_ _pretty_ _much_
> _unsure_ _about_ _Gst_ _is_ _ready_ _for_ _production_ _use_.

My goal is to make 3.0 the first release that is ready for production
use, and competitive with other scripting languages (i.e. there are few
available packages, but all the core ingredients are there; this was the
reason for the major overhaul of the packaging system, which is the
second biggest 3.0 feature after the new syntax).

Feel free to report what is still lacking.

> I tried to understand it deeply (see my post about wiki/status page),
> but received no response. I decided to dig things myself, but I cannot
> afford spending much time into it.

Sorry for the delay.  I took some time to fill your table now.

Paolo


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Ildar, Paolo,

thank you very much for the valuable information!

> BLOX/Browser is a good system to *browse* things, but it is very
> immature to *write* things.

I understand, thanks. Coming from VAST at the moment I'm very much
browser-dependent :). 10 years are 10 years.
>
> Actually, that part is not too early for production.  At least it
> might have bitrotten a bit, but the code has the functionality and was
> relatively well tested.
>
As I need a very basic interface for some templating and generation,
maybe I don't need it at all - I was simply curious.


> The MySQL and SQLite bindings are tested.  They don't have (yet)
> stored procedures, which means you have to be extra careful about SQL
> injection attacks.
>
Hmmm I'm a PostgreSQL fan, and maybe here is the time to test it :)

> My goal is to make 3.0 the first release that is ready for production
> use, and

I'm really waiting for that and I'll test it when it appears in the
gentoo portage tree.

Thank you very much for the information! I'll read this mailing list and
continue my experiments.

Best regards

Robert



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